Saturday, January 20, 2007

In a word, wow. This is what's on the Picador UK site as well as what's on both the US and UK Amazon sites, but it's not yet published and therefore might not be final.

But if it is the final design: No author name on the front. No title on the front (the title is Fireproof, not "Help Me.") Again: Wow.

What it's about:

February 2002. A helpless nation watches as the city of Ahmedabad in India is rocked by religious violence. Before sunrise the next day, more than a hundred Muslim men, women and children will be killed, most of them burnt alive. Above the smoke and flames, the dead decide to intervene.

So begins Fireproof, Raj Kamal Jha’s mesmerizing new novel, in which the murdered whisper from footnotes and photographs. At the heart of the novel is its narrator Jay – a man who carries with him an unspeakable secret and a newborn baby – and a mystery woman, who writes with her fingers on glass, drawing man and child out of their home and on a journey across the burning city.

It makes me really want to know what the cover feels like, that is what materials/effects are used on the physical cover. Not only coated paper(?). Especially in this case I really hope there would be something surprising for the fingertips...